Healthcare in general and laboratory diagnostics in particular are in an unprecedented transition phase. Health care futurists have stated that the clinical laboratory may be on the threshold of a new era in which diagnostic tests become increasingly critical components of the health care system, due to the escalating use of technologies such as genetic, proteonmic, and pharmacogenic testing. The bureau of labor statistics has predicted that the demand for laboratory services will triple by 2010, partly due to the aging population (Beck et al., 2003).
At a time when laboratory test volume and sophistication are increasing, growing, and becoming even more vital to patient care, diagnosis, and safety, the laboratory force is rapidly graying and shrinking. It is predicted that, between 2002 and 2010, the industry will see an annual shortage of 8,200 professional laboratory workers per year (California Employment Development Department, 2004). Adding complexity to this transition process is the emergence and growth of managed health care in recent years, which has led to cost reductions and an increase in demand for efficiency among clinical laboratories.
These developments have resulted in many challenges for both laboratories and diagnostic companies. For example, laboratories are facing increasing training challenges. The laboratories must train more personnel with increasing work loads to understand deeper technical knowledge. Traditionally, laboratories have trained their personnel through off-site, instructor led classes. Now, the decrease of qualified workers, the increase in the number of personnel who must be trained, and the increased demand for efficiency limits the opportunity for such off-site, instructor-led training classes.
As a result, diagnostic companies are being challenged to develop user friendly laboratory technology that laboratory personnel can successfully operate without off-site, instructor-led training classes. In particular, the diagnostic companies are being challenged to bridge the education gap by delivering better, easier-to-use systems which integrate knowledge to the work place. Conventional approaches to such challenges include providing indexed users' manuals that laboratory personnel can review before and during use of laboratory technology.
The personnel can search the contents of the users' manuals for information pertaining to their particular questions and needs. However, because the information in the manuals generally is organized by topic and not by question/need, the personnel oftentimes spend considerable time searching for appropriate information. For example, the personnel generally spend considerable time filtering through volumes of irrelevant information to find information responsive to their particular questions and needs.
Compounding this is the fact that each of the personnel has a different knowledge base on which their questions/needs are based. For example, some personnel require in-depth, step-by-step help, whereas others require only a condensed overview of a particular subject. Due to the one-size-fits-all nature of traditional users' manuals, the personnel may receive too much or too little information.
Thus, a need exists in the art for a system and method for providing performance support for a laboratory device. Specifically, a need exists in the art for a system and method for providing a device user with help content that is specific to the user's particular needs. A further need exists in the art for a system and method for providing a device user with help content that is specific to the user's knowledge base.